Jon Yates

Jon Yates was born and raised in Ames, Iowa, where he spent six years as a stock boy and bagger for the Hy Vee grocery store chain. In college, he placed third in the Southeast Iowa Regional Grocery Bagging Contest.

He graduated from the University of Iowa in 1992 with a degree in journalism and history, and the following year became a reporter at the Iowa City Press-Citizen. He later worked for the Palm Springs Desert Sun and the Nashville Tennessean, before joining the Chicago Tribune in 2000 as a general assignment reporter.

He started the What's Your Problem? column in 2005. It appears on Wednesdays and Sundays.

He lives in Oak Park with his wife, daughter, son and their 75-pound mutt.

Related "Jon Yates" Articles

You could often find her in her garden, a tiny patch of greenery and solitude in the Gold Coast. It was tucked behind the Schiller Street house in which Yvonne Pen lived for more than 50 years, a house once filled with the paintings of her husband,...

As Randy Skendzel's multiple sclerosis progressed, his old motorized wheelchair became obsolete.
Over time, the 58-year-old Bridgeport neighborhood resident lost function in his arms and legs, making the chair impossible for him to operate.
In July...

For years, Eleanor Sears used her husband's Carson's credit card when shopping at the department store.
Then the Morgan Park neighborhood resident tried to buy some items and was denied. The saleswoman at the Evergreen Park store told her that because...

It has been almost a year since Mary Klinefelter had blood drawn for her annual physical.
Finally, her insurance is paying.
Klinefelter, first featured in the Aug. 28 column, had written to "What's Your Problem?" out of frustration after Golden Rule...

It took Virginia Landowski years to persuade Commonwealth Edison to come to her house and fix the tilting utility pole in her yard.
When the workers finally showed in May, they fixed the pole but left large cracks in Landowski's driveway and porch.
...

Shortly after moving into their new Libertyville home last year, Gary O'Reilly and his family set up Comcast service.
They didn't skimp. Because O'Reilly's wife was pregnant with their second child, they decided to get the whole shebang — Internet, cable...

When Lila Ardell decided she wanted to buy the car she had been leasing, she knew she would have to pay a sales tax on the transaction.
Her lender figured out how much she owed, and in April, Ardell cut a check to Illinois for $2,182.48.
Later, Ardell...

For years, Virginia Landowski complained to ComEd about the utility pole that was tilting near the side of her house.
She worried the pole would fall and damage her property, or that of her neighbor.
The Homewood resident was understandably thrilled...

Mary Klinefelter's long, confusing and mind-numbingly frustrating battle with Golden Rule Insurance continues, with the Orland Park resident chipping away at her almost year-old medical bill.
Klinefelter, featured in the Aug. 28 column, had a routine...

Their first set of Lane Furniture was so durable, Bev and Wayne Laechelt did not hesitate when the time came to replace it earlier this year.
The couple picked out a new Lane sofa and love seat at Nick's Furniture of Sugar Grove, paying $2,426 upfront on...

For several years, Carole Dearth paid the Internet and cable bills for her niece and nephews.
When her sister-in-law remarried in January, the sister-in-law's new husband offered to take over the payments.
Dearth called AT&T and asked how to make the...

All Bart Yates wanted was a repair estimate from Hertz for the car he rented in Germany.
The Prospect Heights resident, featured in Thursday's column, had been trying to obtain the document since May, when a rock hit the windshield of his rental while he...

The temperatures hovered around freezing Jan. 10 when William Gruenthal visited a Chase bank in Bolingbrook.On his way back to the parking lot, Gruenthal slipped on a patch of ice and hit his head on the pavement.Two customers helped him off the ground...

Somewhere on the road back to Dusseldorf, Germany, Bart Yates heard the boom.He didn't see the rock hit his windshield, but when he pulled over a short distance later, he saw the damage — a 4-inch crack near the top molding.When Yates (no relation to the...

When the Problem Solver last wrote about Jon Paulsen, the Oak Park resident was worried he would never see the $2,061.66 the Cook County treasurer's office owed him.
The money, the result of a successful appeal that reduced his 2012 property taxes, had...

For Elisabeth Grzywa and her husband, it was truly a blessing when their application for home-based services was approved nine years ago by the Illinois Department of Human Services.It meant that the couple's two autistic sons, Collin and Aaron, could get...

Mary Klinefelter's Golden Rule Insurance Co. health plan said it would pay 100 percent of the costs associated with routine physical exams.
Just to be sure, the Orland Park resident called Golden Rule on Oct. 1 and asked what constituted a "routine...

If not for the "purchase price reimbursement guarantee," John Syverson would never have paid $1,978 for an extended service plan for his 2008 Mazda CX-9.
The agreement, signed April 30, 2008, with the Roto auto dealership in Arlington Heights, had...

Derrick Smith is upfront about his criminal past.
"I am a past felon" are the first five words in his email to the Problem Solver.
The Chicago resident's rap sheet is littered with burglaries, starting in the early 1990s and continuing through 2005.
...

It was a long process for Jon Paulsen to appeal his property tax assessment, but the results were worth the effort.
After two years of work, the Oak Park resident was able to reduce the assessed value of his home, and the county determined that Paulsen...